Show Me The Money

Show Me The Money

How much money do you want to make?

Most people have no idea of how much they want or need to become successful. It varies for everyone but most people do not set a goal for how much they want to make. You have heard it before and it istrue: “If you don’t know where you are going you will never get there.” Some people say “I want to be a millionaire” just because they don’t have a realistic goal that they have set. You need to set S.M.A.R.T. goals in order to reach your desired destination. I will be covering S.M.A.R.T. goals in a future blog. I also hear, “Just enough to pay my bills.” This is sad, and it is not really about becoming successful. Unfortunately, we are becoming a nation of people who want to just get by and rely on others to take care of them.

My “Ah ha” Moment

A very important part of becoming successful is self-confidence. Without self-confidence you will never become successful in business.

Back when I was a finacial planner I attended a sales seminar I will never forget. There were about 300 agents in attendance. I learned a valuable lesson about self-confidence in sales and how to become more successful. The speaker asked everyone to write down how much we made the previous year. He then had us turn the paper over and asked us to write on the left side of the paper the dollar amounts of $30,000, $50,000, $80,000, $100,000, and $150,000+. He then asked us to circle the amount of money we thought most of our personal clients made in a year. He asked us to indicate, by a show of hands, who made sales mostly to people who made $50,000 a year or less. About three quarters of the room raised their hands. Who made sales mostly to people who made $50,000 to $80,000? About thirty hands went up. When he asked who made sales mostly to people who made more than $100,000 a year, less than a dozen hands went up out of about 300 agents. There were a lot of chuckles being heard when he asked us to turn our papers back over and look at the money we made. Why? Because most of the agents made about the same money as the clients they sold. That included me!

Why was this? Most people in sales are intimidated by people who are more successful or who make more money than they do. They feel that if they are not as successful as the person they are selling they won’t get the sale. If you go into the sale with this attitude you are probably correct. If you go into the sale well prepared, as will be discussed in a later blog “Before You Sell Anything,” and with the attitude that you are the expert, you can sell to anyone.

Believe it or not, everyone you meet or try to sell is pretty much the same as you when it comes to buying anything. They put their pants on one leg at a time and many of them started out making very little money when they started. The only difference is their pants may cost more than yours.

Benifits of Selling to Successful People

There are several bonuses to selling to successful people. The first is they understand value. If you have a valuable product or service it usually takes less effort to make the sale. Second, if they like and trust you they will introduce you to other successful people. Third, and probably most important, they have money! I still don’t understand why so many sales people try to sell people who don’t have any money!